Sixty miles or so southwest of Ashburn sits the town of Front Royal – famed as the gateway to the Shenandoah Valley. And on one of the main drags through town sits a fairly standard looking fast food-style restaurant.
We’re guessing some of you already know where we are going with this – we’re talking about Spelunker’s, a tiny restaurant with a very outsized reputation known far and wide for its frozen custard and its “Cavern Burgers.”
“People come in here and say, ‘I heard about this from my cousin’s neighbor,’ or ‘We drove two hours just to get this burger,’” said co-founder April Antonelli. “We actually get hikers coming off the Appalachian Trail and they say this is a destination stop for them.”
Indeed, Spelunker’s is well-known across the region. Local social media sites – like the mammoth Northern Virginia Foodies page on Facebook – are filled with posts about the restaurant.
To read more about Spelunker’s unique story — how it got started and how its fame grew much bigger than the borders of one small town — click here and head over to the Ashburn Magazine site for the full story.
(Image at top: Andrew Sample Photography)